Understanding Student Agency in English for Specific Purposes: The Roles of Motivation and Foreign Language Anxiety

A growing body of research highlights the importance of developing student agency for achieving success in foreign language learning (FLL). This study investigates how foreign language anxiety, self-efficacy, and task value relate to three aspects of student agency: student -teacher collaboration, student -student collaboration, and agency for learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Given the study’s focus on the interactional and collaborative aspects of student agency and acknowledging that class size can have an effect on classroom dynamics and student behaviour, particularly in terms of social interaction, students attending smaller ESP classes were selected for the study. Data were collected from 82 first -year, non -English major unde rgraduates from Croatia. Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression analyses were employed. The results revealed that the anxiety-related variables did not significantly predict student agency. In contrast, self -efficacy emerged as a significant positiv e predictor of both student - student collaboration and ESP agency, while task value significantly predicted ESP agency. Furthermore, both self-efficacy and task value were positively correlated with all three components of student agency. These findings highlight the critical role of self- efficacy and task value in fostering student agency, whereas the effects of anxiety were less pronounced. The study contributes to a better understanding of student agency in university-level ESP learning, with particular emphasis on its motivational and affective determinants. Key words student agency, ESP learning, self-efficacy, task value, foreign language anxiety. * Corresponding address: Ivana Rubić, University of Applied Sciences , Zagrebačka 5, 10410 Velika Gorica, Croatia. IVANA RUBIĆ & IVAN DEVIĆ Vol. 14(1)(2026): 23-43